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Paris airport arms find: Man held
PARIS, France -- French police are reported to be holding a baggage handler at Paris's main international airport after they allegedly found guns, explosives and detonators in his car. The employee of Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, identified by French media as an Algerian, was arrested on suspicion of possessing arms and explosives, France 3 and LCI television said, quoting police sources. The airport, which handles about 100,000 passengers per day at its three terminals, is the same one where Briton Richard Reid managed to board a Miami-bound plane a year ago with explosives hidden in the sole of his shoe. No comment was immediately available from police, the airport or the Interior Ministry, but officials told Reuters a statement would be issued early on Monday. France 3 said police found an automatic pistol, a machine gun, five cakes of plastic explosive and two detonators in a vehicle belonging to the baggage handler, who was in custody on Sunday evening pending an inquiry by anti-terrorist police. A search of the man's home led to the arrest of four other people -- his two brothers, his father and a family friend, LCI television said. Members of the National Anti-Terrorist Division (DNAT) remained at the scene in an "observer capacity." Under French law, terror suspects can be held for 96 hours before they are either put under formal investigation -- a step short of being charged -- or released. The arrests are the latest in a round-up of suspected Islamic militants in and around Paris in recent weeks. The public has grown increasingly nervous since the Interior Ministry said there was no doubt that at least one terrorist attack was being planned for the near-term. French police have arrested nine suspected Islamic militants since December 16, hoping to crack a network believed to have recruited young Muslims to train with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda operation, blamed for last year's September 11 attacks on the United States. A raid on a suburban Paris flat used by some of the suspects unearthed possible bomb-making devices and false identity papers. Islamic militants arrested in Paris over the last two weeks planned to attack Russian interests and particularly wanted to hit Moscow's embassy in Paris, the Interior Ministry said. Security has been stepped up in major French cities and airports over the Christmas holiday period, and the U.S. FBI said this week that law enforcement officials should remain alert to the possibility of attempts to bring down airliners with explosives concealed in clothing or shoes. Earlier this year, in September, plastic explosives were found hidden on board a Royal Air Maroc plane that landed in the eastern French airport of Metz. In December 2001, French security failed to stop Reid, a self-confessed al Qaeda member who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoe, from boarding an American Airlines flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Miami. Reid, 29, a British citizen and convert to Islam, was allegedly seen trying to light the inner tongue of a shoe from which a wire was protruding. In the struggle he bit a flight attendant. Charles de Gaulle airport has about 55,000 employees.
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